I spend a lot of time working at my desk. Lucky for me, there’s usually cat within arm’s reach because Pierre likes to hang out on my desk while I work. That means he’s always there for me. When I’m too busy to take a break, I can run my fingers through his fur and feel his purr.

Of course, there are some drawbacks to having your cat choose the spot between you and your computer monitor, too. It can be easy to let myself get sidetracked from work and just pet Pierre. He wouldn’t complain about that even a little bit.

If Pierre thinks I’m not paying enough attention to him, he first tries rolling over and looking adorable. If that doesn’t work, he has learned that standing between me and the words I’m trying to see usually gets results. Who can resist a cat asking for more scritches?

The ideal solution would be to relocate him to the other arm of my L-shaped desk. It’s the one with the better view. But Pierre doesn’t want the view. He wants the attention. So I needed a way to make the other arm of my desk more comfortable for him than the part in front of my computer monitors.

I needed something for Pierre that had a small enough footprint to fit on my desk and leave room for my internet router behind it. But it also had to be so irresistible that he would rather be there than between me and my computer monitor. What I found was the MessyCats 2-in-1 Cuddler Bed.

Pierre is ignoring me because his bed is even better than interfering with my work.

Pierre likes being able to be close to me and still have his own, cozy space. He can look out the window into our sunroom and through that room’s windows watch the birds and wildlife beyond. It’s the best of all worlds for him.

The bed has a cushioned bottom than the hard surface of my desk. The fabric of the bed has Everfresh probiotic embedded in it to prevent odor. Not that Pierre smells, of course. He leaves that to the dogs. But you never know where a hairball might show up, and this bed will never get the “hairball was here” funk.

The cuddly walls of the bed that Pierre enjoys snuggling into are especially thick because the bed converts into a house. Those thick walls are actually doubled over walls for the house. When the house pops up, it makes a cozy hideaway. Pierre loves to sleep in enclosed places, so he really likes the bed in this configuration, even if it means he doesn’t have a panoramic view. I guess his eyes will be closed anyhow, so the view isn’t so important.

Pierre is a senior cat and is less tolerant of cooler temperatures as he ages, and I like how his body heat quickly warms the hideaway for him. I’ll use the bed in the hideaway configuration on cold days so he has warm, cozy spot to hang out next to me while he supervises my work.

The rest of the time, I can keep the bed in its cuddler configuration so it doesn’t interfere with my view or his of the windows. I love the flexibility of the bed, and Pierre thinks it’s the best thing ever to happen to my desk. The best part is that I can see my computer monitors again. We all win!

The MessyCats 2-in-1 Cuddler Bed is made by our Canadian friends, MessyMutts. You can find it at Amazon.

FTC Disclosure: I received the MessyCats 2-in-1 Cuddler Bed for review at no charge. This didn’t influence what I said about the product. All opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider. I receive no additional benefits for talking about the products or company.

This post contains affiliate links, which means we receive a small percentage if you make a purchase.

If you look up “cats who prefer the cat version of junk food,” I’m pretty sure the result is just Pierre’s photo.

Especially after his recent bout of pancreatitis, I really wanted to find Pierre a healthier food that he will actually eat. I have been thinking that home cooking his meals would be the way to go to introduce fresher ingredients while making sure he had a balanced diet. But there’s a problem: I am terrible in the kitchen and barely cook for the humans around here. There’s no way I would be able to keep up with cooking for Pierre, too.

I thought it would be great if someone came into the house while I were busy at work and cooked up a batch of cat meals using fresh ingredients every week.
Then I thought it would be kind of weird if someone was actually in my kitchen doing that. But wouldn’t it be awesome if someone showed up with fresh food made for the cats every week? It turns out someone does: NomNomNow.

How NomNomNow Works

I told the folks at NomNomNow Pierre’s age and weight, and they calculated a good portion size for him. There was also a place to provide a target weight, so if he was underweight or overweight, I could include the weight he should be to help identify a good portion size.

This was a useful tool, since I suspected his ideal amount of gently cooked food would be different from his usual amount of canned food. It turned out my suspicion was right, and he needed less NomNomNow than the heavily-processed canned food, a little over 2/3 of the quantity I was used to feeding him.

I also selected from the NomNomNow food formulas. They offer a chicken-based option, named Chicken Chow-Meow, and a fish-based formula, named Flavorful Fish Feast. I don’t know why the fish formula doesn’t have a cute name like everything else there. It should! Even if it did, I would still be limiting Pierre’s fish intake, especially after his pancreatitis attack, so I chose the chicken formula for him.

Chicken Chow-Meow

Both formulas include more vegetables than I prefer seeing in a cat food, and I was a little worried that Pierre would be turned off by them. We waited for the first shipment so we could see.

Receiving the Shipment

Before Pierre’s first food shipment arrived, I got emails telling me what to expect. They explained that the food would be packed with enough cold packs that it would remain cool until at least 10 pm if I wasn’t home to receive the delivery. This is a good thing, since my porch is in the direct Florida sun in the afternoon.

When the NomNomNow box arrived, it came in a nice box with plenty of cold packs. The inner packaging is an insulated, foil faced thing that reminded me of the stuff you sometimes see used for car sunscreens. The result was there still being plenty of cold inside, even though the box was sitting on my porch in the 90-something degree heat, in direct sunlight.

The NomNomNow Cat Food

The people at Nom Nom Now were really thinking ahead. They just started shipping their complete meals for cats recently, but they are prepared for the fact that cats don’t adapt instantly to new foods. They sent samples of beef broth and powdered topper to put on the food to help a cat adapt to the new food.

Food arrives packaged in individual meal packets. After spending years weighing raw food for my cats for each meal and then years before that estimating fractions of cans, being able to open a packet and having it be a meal for a cat was so nice and easy.

The food itself looks like something you might eat. It smells nice, a little chicken-y, and you can see the little vegetable bits in it. NomNomNow sources all of their USDA-certified food ingredients from restaurant suppliers in the San Francisco Bay area, and the food looks fresh and not over-processed.

We added the topper and put it in Pierre’s usual eating place, his Sure-Feed microchip feeder. He was tentative at first, but then he dug right in. Picky cat success!

When you order from NomNomNow, your second shipment comes with emergency meals to help tide you over in case your delivery service fails for some reason. You don’t want to risk being left without cat food, so this is a really good thing!

I used the emergency meals to test how Ashton and Cupcake liked the food. Cupcake was confused about the change from her usual meals at first, but once she realized this was dinner, she ate it. Ashton was an even bigger fan, eating every bit and leaving a clean plate the first time we offered it to her for dinner. All in all, we had a 3-for-3 success rate with accepting the new food, since Newton is on a special diet and didn’t get to participate.

I love the convenience and freshness of NomNomNow’s food. It’a a great way to be able to feed your cat something that’s not over-processed. I think it’s especially worth looking at for people who hesitate to make the leap to a raw diet or don’t have the time to cook for their cat at home.

FCC Disclosure: This post is sponsored by NomNomNow. We received the product for review at no charge. Receiving free product did not influence our review in any way. All sponsored posts always reflect our honest and unbiased opinions and feature products and information we feel is relevant to our readers.

How does this thing work, anyhow?

What you wouldn’t ever expect is that there’s an additional reservoir at the top where you can put something you don’t want to fall out of the treat dispensing hole… like catnip. Who said the party is over when the treats are gone?

Newton: Party on!

FTC Disclaimer: We received our DôyenCat toy for free from DôyenWorld, but our opinions about how it is fun to play with are our own.

When Cupcake shops in the home decorating store, she doesn’t just look in the pets section. She shops everywhere. That’s how she ended up checking out the fancy foods section full of packaged foods. In it, she found something that caught her eye.

Candy kittens! Of course, we had get some and check them out.

Candy kittens are thankfully not made of kittens. Instead, they are candies in the shape of a cat’s head. They are soft and chewy, but firmer than a gummy bear.

Newton heard the bag rattling and thought it sounded like a cat treat, so he had to come take a look. Cats don’t eat fresh raspberry, Newton!

Not one to listen, Newton had to get a good sniff before he agreed that cats indeed do not eat fresh raspberry!

These candies are very British. So much so that one of the flavors is Eaton Mess. I had to Google to find out what Eaton Mess was. It’s a traditional English dessert made of strawberries, broken pieces of meringue, and double whipped cream.

Hey, that dish looks like something a cat might like to taste a little more than they would these candies! The candies are really tasty, though. Not as sweet as a lot of American candy, but fruity. I tried the Eaton Mess flavor, then the fresh raspberry, wild strawberry, and sweet pineapple.

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